Elsewhere Today 446

Aljazeera:
Floods hit large swaths of Africa

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2007
10:31 MECCA TIME, 7:31 GMT

International aid agencies are calling for more help as floods continues to devastate large swaths of Africa.

Dozens have died and an estimated one million people affected by the prolonged rains.

In the east of the continent, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda are the worst hit countries, with at least 87 people dead.

Sudan, Kenya and Rwanda have also been affected.

After days of torrential rain, tributaries that flow into the Nile have burst their banks, flooding villages in Uganda's Lira district.

The heaviest rainfall in 35 years has displaced at least 150,000 people in eastern Uganda, and, according to authorities, the rain has been "worsening by the hour".

Crops destroyed

Rising flood waters have resulted in as many as 400,000 people losing their livelihoods due to crops being destroyed, Musa Ecweri, the state minister for relief and disaster preparedness, said.

Nine peope died after being washed away by floodwater or struck by lightning during violent storms.

Ecweru said the death toll was expected to rise, with rain still falling across large areas of the region.

Aid organisations have stepped up efforts to get food and clean water to villagers. But landslides triggered by additional rainfall have washed away roads and aid access is currently limited, officials said.

Gilbert Buzu of the World Food Programme, said: "You will find water flowing over the bridge and in some areas people are using dugout boats to cross the bridge and, of course, that makes it very impossible for the trucks to move through."

The UN is expected to send helicopters and boats to boost relief efforts.

Ethiopia, Rwanda and Sudan are also affected, with hundreds of thousands now at risk of water-borne disease.

Ghana floods

In West Africa, 12 countries are flood-affected, with Ghana and Nigeria sustaining the heaviest damage.

Eighteen people are reported to have been killed after floods hit dozens of villages in northern Ghana.

Local residents said the death toll may rise further.

More than 250,000 people have reportedly lost their houses in the floods.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4C2BACB6-BE9E-41F4-874F-75C16FCB9A76.htm

---

AllAfrica:
Army Launches Fresh Offensive Against Rivers Cultists

By George Onah, Port Harcourt
Vanguard (Lagos) NEWS
15 September 2007

A joint military operation, which involved the use of fighter helicopters and armoured tanks, was carried out at the Ozuoba and Ogbogoro forests, Obio/Akpor Council, Rivers State, yesterday in a renewed offensive to destroy the base and strongholds of suspected cultists in the state.

Saturday Vanguard gathered that the early morning operation, which featured series of bombardment by military helicopters and artillery shells from the armoured tanks sent shock waves around the communities in the area, prompting the natives to flee in droves.

However, the military command sent words to fleeing villagers that the bombardment was targeted at cultists, brigands and criminals that had taken shelter in the forests after being dislodged in their hideouts in Port Harcourt City, Ogbogoro, Ozuoba, Gborikiri, Tombia, Buguma and other areas.

Spokesman for the 2 Amphibious Brigade, Port Harcourt, Major Sagir Musa told Saturday Vanguard on telephone, "The operation is in continuation of our determination to rid the state of cultists and other criminals.

"We are not just stopping at chasing them out of Port Harcourt city but we want to really get them at every creek, forest, village or waterfront where they plan their evil against the innocent people in the society.

Whatever arms and ammunition they may have will be recovered by the military and this is part of the move to get them and hand them over to the police so that they face justice according to the law of this country."

At Ogbogoro community, there was unusual silence and blanket fright, which made villagers look across their shoulder as they walked around their neighbour-hood. Parents restricted movements of their children, causing them to peep through partially opened windows, nosing for news on the developments.

Armoured tanks drove from their base in Ogbogoro towards Rumukwaochi village, apparently to reload after exhausting the ordinance used in the Uzuoba forests. Residents of nearby Choba village made frantic phone calls to their relations in Uzuoba, "wanting to know if all was well there."

Motorists and commuters, particularly from the nearby University of Port Harcourt community, who normally drove through and from Uzuoba to their destination, had to change their route when they saw villagers moving in droves and carrying household property as they walk fearfully, down the road.

Taxis, buses and commercial motorcycles that normally ply the Iwofe/Ogbogoro axis were not available to convey passengers and those who were approached to convey commuters to the place simply said, "Have you not heard about the war going on there, I cannot die because of money."

Copyright © 2007 Vanguard. All rights reserved.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200709150002.html

---

AllAfrica:
Rebels Warn of 'Total War' If EU Force is Not Neutral

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks NEWS
14 September 2007
Dakar

A leader of one of the rebel groups in eastern Chad warned a proposed European Union (EU) force that it will be a target if it takes sides in the country's civil war.

"If they come simply to protect the Darfur refugees in eastern Chad then we have no problem with that," Albissaty Saleh Allazan, the leader of a Chadian rebel group Conseil d'Action Révolutionnaire told IRIN on September 14 after a press conference in Dakar, Senegal.

"But if they end up interposing themselves between us and N'djemena [Chad's capital] then we will fight them."

On 10 August UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released a report calling for a "multidimensional UN presence in eastern Chad and northeastern Central African Republic" that would be under the EU flag for a preliminary 12 months after which a possible "UN successor operation" would take its place. The EU has approved the force and deployment could begin in October.

But rebel groups associate the EU force with France, the former colonial power. French troops based in the Chadian capital, N'djamena, were perceived as having been instrumental in halting an attempt to invade N'djamena by one rebel group in April 2006 (although the leader of that group has since formed an alliance with the government).

"I personally question the EU's intentions," said Albissaty, who's group is part of a coalition with the rebel Rassemblement des Forces du Changement headed by Timan Erdimi. Albissaty suggested that the EU was more interested in exploiting the country's oil resources than bringing lasting peace to the country.

"If the EU and the UN don't take the conflict in Chad seriously it risks becoming a total war, something like we are seeing now in Iraq," he said.

The EU and UN recently completed a preparatory mission to Chad but its representatives never sought contact with rebel leaders, Albissaty said. "We talk to the International Red Cross all the time but we have not had any dialogue with anyone from the EU or UN," he said

"We would be willing to work with them," he added

Albissaty said that rebel groups do want to find a peaceful end to the armed conflict and their leaders have attended peace talks organised by Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi in Tripoli. "But in the course of the talks it became clear that the delegation from the government was not negotiating in good faith".

"The government's aim is to divide us," he said. "They have tried to meet us individually making promises and claiming that we were betraying each other but hasn't worked," he said.

Rebel forces are in a strong military position to challenge the army, he added.

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]

Copyright © 2007 UN Integrated Regional Information Networks. All rights reserved.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200709140923.html

---

AlterNet:
U.S. Secret Air War Pulverizes Afghanistan and Iraq

By Conn Hallinan, Foreign Policy in Focus
Posted on September 14, 2007

According to the residents of Datta Khel, a town in Pakistan's North Waziristan, three missiles streaked out of Afghanistan's Pakitka Province and slammed into a Madrassa, or Islamic school, this past June. When the smoke cleared, the Asia Times reported, 30 people were dead.

The killers were robots, General Atomics MQ-1 Predators. The AGM-114 Hellfire missiles they used in the attack were directed from a base deep in the southern Nevada desert.

It was not the first time Predators had struck. The previous year a CIA Predator took a shot at al-Qaeda's number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, but missed. The missile, however, killed 18 people. According to the Asia Times piece, at least one other suspected al-Qaeda member was assassinated by a Predator in Pakistan's northern frontier area, and in 2002 a Predator killed six "suspected al-Qaeda" members in Yemen.

These assaults are part of what may be the best kept secret of the Iraq-Afghanistan conflicts: an enormous intensification of US bombardments in these and other countries in the region, the increasing number of civilian casualties such a strategy entails, and the growing role of pilot-less killers in the conflict.

According to Associated Press, there has been a five-fold increase in the number of bombs dropped on Iraq during the first six months of 2007 over the same period in 2006. More than 30 tons of those have been cluster weapons, which take an especially heavy toll on civilians.

The U.S. Navy has added an aircraft carrier to its Persian Gulf force, and the Air Force has moved F-16s into Balad air base north of Baghdad.

Balad, which currently conducts 10,000 air operations a week, is strengthening runways to handle the increase in air activity. Col. David Reynolds told the AP, "We would like to get to be a field like Langley, if you will." The Langley field in Virginia is one of the Air Force's biggest and most sophisticated airfields.

The Air Force certainly appears to be settling in for a long war. "Until we can determine that the Iraqis have got their air force to significant capability," says Lt Gen. Gary North, the regional air commander, "I think the coalition will be here to support that effort."

The Iraqi air force is virtually non-existent. It has no combat aircraft and only a handful of transports.

Improving the runways has allowed the Air Force to move B1-B bombers from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to Balad, where the big aircraft have been carrying out daily strikes. A B1-B can carry up to 24 tons of bombs.

The step-up in air attacks is partly a reflection of how beaten up and overextended U.S. ground troops are. While Army units put in 15-month tours, Air Force deployments are only four months, with some only half that. And Iraqi and Afghani insurgents have virtually no ability to inflict casualties on aircraft flying at 20,000 feet and using laser and satellite-guided weapons, in contrast to the serious damage they are doing to US ground troops.

Besides increasing the number of F-16s, B1-Bs, and A-10 attack planes, Predator flight hours over both countries have doubled from 2005. "The Predator is coming into its own as a no-kidding weapon verses a reconnaissance-only platform," brags Maj. Jon Dagley, commander of the 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron.

The Air Force is also deploying a bigger, faster and more muscular version of the Predator, the MQ-9 "Reaper" - as in grim - a robot capable of carrying four Hellfire missiles, plus two 500 lb. bombs.

The Predators and the Reapers have several advantages, the most obvious being they don't need pilots. "With more Reapers I could send manned airplanes home," says North.

At $8.5 million an aircraft - the smaller Predator comes in at $4.5 million apiece - they are also considerably cheaper than the F-16 ($19 million) the B1-B ($200+ million) and even the A-10 ($9.8 million).

The Air Force plans to deploy 170 Predators and 70 Reapers over the next three years. "It is possible that in our lifetime we will be able to run a war without ever leaving the US," Lt Col David Branham told the New York Times.

The result of the stepped up air war, according to the London-based organization Iraq Body Count, is an increase in civilian casualties. A Lancet study of "excess deaths" caused by the Iraq war found that air attacks were responsible for 13% of the deaths - 76,000 as of June 2006 - and that 50% of the deaths of children under 15 were caused by air strikes.

The number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan from air strikes has created a rift between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United States.

"A senior British commander," according to the New York Times, has pressed U.S. Special Forces (SF) to leave southern Afghanistan because their use of air power was alienating the local people. SFs work in small teams and are dependent on air power for support.

SFs called in an air strike last November near Kandahar that killed 31 nomads. This past April, a similar air strike in Western Afghanistan killed 57 villagers, half of them women and children. Coalition forces are now killing more Afghan civilians than the Taliban are. The escalating death toll has thrown the government of Hamid Karzai into a crisis and the NATO governments into turmoil. "We need to understand that preventing civilian casualties is crucially important in sustaining the support of the population," British Defense Minister Des Browne told the Financial Times.

It has also opened up the allies to the charge of war crimes. In a recent air attack in southern Afghanistan that killed 25 civilians, NATO spokesman Lt. Col Mike Smith said the Taliban were responsible because they were hiding among the civilian population.

But Article 48 of the Geneva Conventions clearly states: "The Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants." Article 50 dictates that "The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilian does not deprive the population of its civilian character."

The stepped-up air war in both countries has less to do with a strategic military decision than the reality that the occupations are coming apart at the seams.

For all intents and purposes, the U.S. Army in Iraq is broken, the victim of multiple tours, inadequate forces, and the kind of war Iraq has become: a conflict of shadows, low-tech but highly effective roadside bombs, and a population which is either hostile to the occupation or at least sympathetic to the resistance.

It is much the same in Afghanistan. Lord Inge, the former British chief of staff, recently said, "The situation in Afghanistan is much worse than many people recognize...it is much more serious that people want to recognize." A well-placed military source told the Observer, "If you talk privately to the generals, they are very worried." Faced with defeat or bloody stalemate on the ground, the allies have turned to air power, much as the U.S. did in Vietnam. But, as in Vietnam, the terrible toll bombing inflicts on civilians all but guarantees long-term failure.

"Far from bringing about the intended softening up of the opposition," Phillip Gordon, a Brookings Institute Fellow, told the Asia Times, "bombing tends to rally people behind their leaders and cause them to dig in against outsiders who, whatever the justification, are destroying their homeland."

Conn Hallinan is a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/62511/

---

Guardian: Between Rock and a hard place
- savers besiege bank

Fears of property crash as lending squeezed
Northern Rock shares drop 30% after rescue
Bank websites down as customers panic

Larry Elliott and Ashley Seager
Saturday September 15, 2007

Branches of Northern Rock were besieged by savers yesterday as fears grew in the City that the Bank of England rescue package for Britain's fifth-biggest mortgage lender could herald a slide in house prices and further financial collapses.

Amid news that property prices were already falling sharply before the Bank's first use of its lender-of-last-resort facility in more than 30 years, the Newcastle-based Northern Rock was forced to keep branches open late to allow savers access to their money. By last night it was reported a total of £1bn had been withdrawn.

Customers ignored reassurances from the chancellor, Alistair Darling, the British Bankers Association and Northern Rock itself that funds were safe.

In the first real test of internet banking, websites at Northern Rock and many other banks crashed as savers tried to access their accounts. Police had to be called to a branch in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, when a couple barricaded the manager in her office when she refused to let them withdraw their £1m savings.

Shares in Northern Rock fell more than 30% yesterday, dragging the stock market down. With speculation other mortgage lenders were at risk, the FTSE 100 index closed down more than 1%. A sharp drop in shares of buy-to-let lender Paragon Mortgages made it issue a statement that it had no need to resort to the Bank of England, while Bradford & Bingley and Alliance & Leicester denied they had problems.

"I'm sure there are more to come. Northern Rock was the biggest in terms of size but it's not going to be the only one to go. It's not the only one using that business mode," a City source said, adding that the economy would slow in coming months as lenders tightened their loan criteria and house prices came under pressure.

Property website Rightmove reported asking prices across the country had fallen 2.6% since August, and the London market suffered its first drop in asking prices in three years.

Julian Jessop, an analyst with Capital Economics, said the formal announcement yesterday that the Bank of England offered Northern Rock unlimited funds at a penal rate of interest showed that what had been a credit crunch was now "a good old-fashioned bank run". Senior City sources said questions were being asked whether the Financial Services Authority, the City's watchdog, should have detected the bank's problems earlier.

Northern Rock is now seen as a £2bn takeover target after the credit crunch prompted by the US sub-prime mortgage crisis left it unable to raise funds in the money markets. Barclays and National Australia Bank, which owns the Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank, were last night being tipped as potential bidders.

Northern Rock was heavily exposed to the turmoil in the global markets because it borrowed 80% of its funds from wholesale money markets, which have dried up in recent weeks. It expanded aggressively in the first half of the year, writing one in four new mortgages, and would lend first-time buyers many times their salary.

Adam Applegarth, chief executive of Northern Rock, said: "We can't see the end of this. We don't know how long it will last. We decided we had to move earlier rather than later. There was no point sitting around like Mr Micawber waiting for something to turn up."

Mr Darling said Britain's economy and its banking system remained strong. "Northern Rock is the only institution that has come to the Bank of England," the chancellor said. "At the moment there is plenty of money in the system, the banks have got money...they are simply not lending in the short-term way that institutions like Northern Rock need."

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

http://business.guardian.co.uk/markets/story/0,,2169786,00.html

---

Jeune Afrique:
Péril sur le Sahel

De part et d’autre de la frontière, les rébellions touarègues ont repris les armes et font craindre une régionalisation du conflit.

AFRIQUE DE L’OUEST - 9 septembre 2007 - par CHERIF OUAZANI

Embuscades contre des patrouilles de l’armée régulière, convois, civils ou militaires, sautant sur des mines, touristes rackettés, opérateurs pétroliers ou miniers priés d’aller prospecter ailleurs… Le Mali et le Niger doivent de nouveau faire face aux vieux démons de l’irrédentisme touareg. Le 26 août, à Tédjérète, dans le nord-est du Mali, près de la frontière nigérienne, quinze soldats maliens ont été pris en otages par un groupe de rebelles mené par Ibrahim Ag Bahanga. Si ce dernier s’est engagé depuis à ne plus s’attaquer à l’armée, certains redoutent que le regain de violence ne menace la stabilité de la sous-région. Car, de l’autre côté de la frontière, au Niger, les combats ont repris depuis février entre les Touaregs et l’armée. Début août, les autorités d’Iférouane ont alerté sur l’insécurité qui règne dans la région. Et d’aucuns, à Niamey et à Bamako, mais aussi à Alger et à Ouagadougou, de craindre, constatant la concomitance de la reprise des rébellions malienne et nigérienne, une régionalisation du conflit.

Si elles connaissent chacune des particularités nationales, les révoltes touarègues sont fondées sur les mêmes revendications. Territoire de transhumance, le Sahel semble trop aride pour servir de cadre aux conflits armés, mais les problèmes identitaires sont venus compliquer la donne. Au début des années 1990, trente ans après la fin des empires coloniaux, les Touaregs, communauté berbère partageant depuis des siècles le Sahel avec d’autres ethnies, entrent en rébellion contre le pouvoir central de Bamako et celui de Niamey. Missions de bons offices, médiation, négociations. Les accords de paix signés en 1996 au Niger, sous le parrainage de l’Algérie, rétablissent le calme dans la région. En mars 1995, à Tombouctou, au Mali, les rebelles de l’Azawad (est) mettent leurs armes au bûcher, pompeusement baptisé « Flamme de la paix ». Dans les deux pays, des combattants irrédentistes sont intégrés dans l’armée régulière, des plans de développement régionaux lancés. Mais des éléments exogènes vont pousser une minorité va-t-en-guerre à reprendre les armes.

Après les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, qui ont déclenché la guerre contre le terrorisme, des membres d’Al-Qaïda ont peu à peu investi le Sahel. Les djihadistes, qui distribuent argent, eau et carburant, se sont alliés aux populations autochtones et ont réussi à bouleverser les fragiles équilibres socio-ethniques. Très vite, la présence militaire américaine dans la région est jugée indésirable. Autre facteur de déstabilisation : la transformation du Sahel en carrefour de tous les trafics (drogue, tabac, armes, traite humaine). Le contrôle des axes très fréquentés assure fortune et puissance aux rebelles. À quoi s’ajoutent des perspectives pétrolières qui aiguisent tous les appétits… Au Mali comme au Niger, les tensions deviennent de plus en plus vives.

Une mystérieuse alliance

Le 23 mai 2006, deux bataillons de l’armée malienne sont attaqués à Kidal et Ménaka (est). Gouvernement et rebelles sollicitent une médiation algérienne, qui débouche sur un accord de paix signé le 4 juillet suivant. La trêve ne dure que quelques mois. Le 11 mai 2007, un des signataires de l’accord d’Alger, Ibrahim Ag Bahanga entre en dissidence. Et mène des opérations à Tin Zawaten, qui se soldent par la mort de dix militaires et de deux douaniers. Trois mois auparavant, au Niger, le Mouvement nigérien pour la justice (MNJ), une rébellion dirigée par Agaly Alambo, lançait ses premières attaques meurtrières contre les forces armées. Des deux côtés de la frontière, les violences s’intensifient. Pour la première fois, les rebelles recourent aux mines antipersonnel qui font, en août 2007, seize morts au Mali et deux au Niger.

Des attaques que les ex-rebelles, signataires des accords de paix, ont condamnées d’une même voix. « Ibrahim Ag Bahanga n’a aucune légitimité historique. Il n’était qu’un simple soldat de la rébellion », affirme un ancien cadre du Mouvement populaire de l’Azawad (MPA, principale force rebelle au Mali durant les années 1990). Vétéran de la Légion verte, formée à la fin des années 1980 par Mouammar Kaddafi, Bahanga est loin de faire l’unanimité. « Il n’a jamais cru à la solution politique, se souvient un ancien médiateur algérien. Sa première défection a eu lieu quelques mois après la “Flamme de la paix”, de mars 1996. Il a quitté l’armée malienne, où il avait été intégré au grade de sergent-chef. » Trois ans plus tard, le rebelle s’attaque à une patrouille de l’armée, prend en otage des soldats et demande que son village natal de Tin Essako acquière le statut de commune. Bahanga obtient gain de cause mais le président Alpha Oumar Konaré refuse de le réintégrer dans l’armée régulière. L’homme ne se calme pas pour autant. Et pousse le lieutenant-colonel félon Hassan Fagaga à passer à l’acte en mai 2006 à Kidal et Ménaka. Finalement écarté de la rébellion par la grande figure touarègue Iyad Ag Ghali, Bahanga fait le dos rond et attend son heure. Il exprime ses réserves à l’égard de l’accord d’Alger, travaille au corps les rebelles ayant déposé les armes et, en mai 2007, parvient à convaincre une cinquantaine d’hommes de le suivre dans le maquis de Tin Zawaten. Et le 30 août 2007, il obtient le ralliement du lieutenant-colonel Hassan Fagaga.

Côté nigérien, le leader du MNJ a un tout autre parcours. Cadre politique de la rébellion touarègue au Niger, Agaly Alambo a intégré l’administration publique après la signature des accords de paix en 1995. Il est devenu sous-préfet d’Arlit, riche région minière du nord du pays. Mais, considérant que le gouvernement du président Mamadou Tandja n’a pas respecté les engagements pris par ses prédécesseurs, l’homme reprend les armes. Malgré leurs particularités, les mouvements rebelles maliens et nigériens pourraient trouver un intérêt à s’allier. À la fin du mois d’août, un proche d’Ibrahim Ag Bahanga a annoncé la création d’une mystérieuse Alliance touarègue Niger-Mali (ATNM)…

« Nous sommes en contact avec nos frères maliens qui sont aussi chez eux à Tamgak [nom du maquis qui sert de quartier général au MNJ, ndlr], affirme Alambo, tout en niant vouloir rejoindre une quelconque alliance. Notre mouvement n’est pas ethnique mais d’essence nationale, composé de Nigériens, touaregs ou pas. »

ATT et Tandja : des approches différentes

Bien que la rébellion touarègue menace de se régionaliser, les autorités maliennes et nigériennes n’ont pas encore mis en œuvre une politique de riposte concertée. Depuis février 2007, date de la première manifestation violente du MNJ, le président nigérien, Mamadou Tandja, refuse tout dialogue avec les rebelles et nie même l’existence d’une rébellion en qualifiant les hommes d’Alambo de « ramassis de bandits et de trafiquants de drogue ». En réponse à leurs attaques, il a instauré l’état d’urgence et dépêché, en août, son Premier ministre, Seyni Oumarou, à Alger et à Tripoli. Le chef de l’État s’est lui-même rendu auprès du « Guide » libyen Mouammar Kaddafi pour solliciter indirectement son intervention auprès de la communauté touarègue.

De son côté, le président malien Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT) semble plus enclin à entamer des discussions avec les insurgés. Au lendemain de l’enlèvement, le 26 août, des quinze militaires maliens, ATT a chargé Iyad Ag Ghali, l’ancien rebelle devenu sénateur, et le général Mamadou Diagouraga de convaincre Bahanga de libérer ses prisonniers. Le 31 août, ce dernier a promis de cesser toute attaque contre l’armée régulière. Fatigués des agissements « irresponsables » de l’imprévisible Bahanga, les Algériens, médiateurs historiques dans la crise touarègue, se font prudents et… optimistes. « Nous faisons confiance au charisme d’Iyad Ag Ghali pour dénouer cette crise », dit-on à Alger. Il est vrai qu’Iyad Ag Ghali passe pour un expert en matière de négociation pour la libération d’otages. N’est-ce pas lui qui avait obtenu la libération des touristes allemands enlevés par le Groupe salafiste pour la prédication et le combat (GSPC) dans le Sahara algérien en février 2003 ?

http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/
article_jeune_afrique.asp?art_cle=LIN09097prilslehase0

---

Mail & Guardian:
Severe flooding hits West, Central Africa

14 September 2007

The heaviest rainfall in 35 years has displaced about 150 000 people in eastern Uganda since August and the rain has been "worsening by the hour", authorities said on Friday.

Up to 400 000 people have lost their livelihoods and 150 000 of them have been displaced by severe flooding in eastern Uganda, State Minister for Relief and Disaster Preparedness Musa Ecweru said.

Nine people have died in flood waters or lightning strikes during violent storms. Ecweru said the death toll is expected to rise with rain still falling across large areas of the affected region.

Ecweru said about 150 000 people had to move after being caught between rising flood waters.

"For the other 250 000 or thereabouts there is nothing in the kitchen. Their crops have been destroyed," he said. "The floods are worsening by the hour - for the last 48 hours the rain continues falling."

According to the United Nations, rainfall since July has been the heaviest in 35 years for many parts of eastern Uganda.

Ecweru said that a joint aid effort by the Ugandan government and the UN is being hampered by limited access with roads and bridges submerged in many areas. He said that three boats and four helicopters were being brought to Uganda by the UN to help deliver emergency aid including food, fresh water, tarpaulins and medication.

West and Central Africa
Flooding across much of West and Central Africa has killed at least 75 people and threaten about a half million, UN officials say as several countries report worsening conditions.

At least 33 people have died in Burkina Faso, 20 in Togo and six in Ghana, according to figures released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs office in Geneva on Friday. Further east, 15 people have been killed in Rwanda, its government said.

Ghana, Burkina Faso and Mauritania have all made appeals for international help.

Elisabeth Byrs, spokesperson for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said storms have laid waste to roads and bridges, cut entire villages and destroyed thousands of houses and vast areas of farm land.

The victims, who are already among the most malnourished people on the planet, are in dire need of tents, supplies, drinking water, medicine, mosquito nets, fuel and matches, Byrs told a Geneva press conference.

In Geneva, she said, about 260 000 are suffering from the effects of the floods.

In neighbouring Burkina Faso, on top of the deaths, 35 000 have been affected by the floods that have destroyed crops in a country where 80% of the population live off farming.

Thousands in Burkina Faso are homeless and have found temporary shelter in schools and other public buildings.

In Rwanda, the 15 dead were in two villages in the north-east of the country, local authorities said. "It is a catastrophic situation. The rain started Wednesday afternoon and heavy floods have caused the deaths of around 10 people" in two villages in the Nyabihu district, district mayor Charles Ngirabatware said.

Five other bodies were discovered on Friday after water levels dropped, he said, adding that all the victims came from the villages of Mukamira and Bigogwe.

Togo schooling delayed
In Togo, non-stop rain over several days has washed away or damaged 22 000 hut homes, more than 100 bridges and 58 schools and colleges, along with 1 500ha of food crops, and has left 34 000 people homeless.

The government has declared three days of national mourning for the victims and on Friday postponed the start of the school year, which was supposed to have started on September 17, by one month.

The Togolese government has allotted more than 500-million CFA francs ($1-million) to rescue operations and assistance.

Last week, officials in Niger said about a dozen people had died in the country and more than 6 000 others had been affected by the heavy rains since July, and according Byrs one person has also been killed in Liberia.

Rescue workers are concerned that relief efforts could be held up by more bad weather predicted for September 18 to 24, she said.

Sapa-AFP

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/
breaking_news__africa/&articleid=319337

---

Página/12: Histórico reconocimiento
de las Naciones Unidas a los aborígenes

La Declaración de los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas fue apoyada por 143 países y rechazada por cuatro, entre ellos Estados Unidos. Establece derechos a la tierra y a su identidad cultural.

Por Darío Aranda
Sábado, 15 de Septiembre de 2007

Luego de veintidós años de negativa de los países desarrollados, la Organización de Naciones Unidas (ONU) aprobó la Declaración de los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas, equiparada a la Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos, pero específica para poblaciones originarias. La medida, señalada como histórica, involucra a 370 millones de personas en todo el mundo. Hace hincapié en los derechos colectivos, la identidad, el territorio y la autonomía de los pueblos. El texto final tuvo el apoyo de 143 países, en tanto que cuatro votaron en contra (Estados Unidos, Canadá, Australia y Nueva Zelanda) y once se abstuvieron. El presidente de Bolivia, Evo Morales, festejó la sanción y, en Argentina –donde la población originaria ronda el millón y medio de personas–, las organizaciones aborígenes le dieron la bienvenida aunque advirtieron que la declaración sólo será aplicada “si existen comunidades organizadas que luchen por esos derechos”.

La Declaración, aprobada el miércoles a última hora, tiene 46 artículos, gran parte de ellos dedicados a los derechos de los pueblos indígenas sobre las tierras que ocupan, los bienes naturales que poseen, la preservación del medio ambiente, la autonomía y la promoción de la plena y efectiva participación indígena en todos los asuntos que les conciernen. Además, trata sobre los derechos individuales y colectivos, cultura, identidad, educación, salud, empleo e idioma, entre otros.

“Estas normas permitirán hacer respetar nuestros derechos y los de todos los pueblos”, festejó Evo Morales, el primer presidente indígena de América latina.

En Argentina, el Movimiento Nacional Campesino Indígena (MNCI), integrado por 15.000 familias organizadas de siete provincias, fue más prudente: “Creemos que nos da un nuevo paraguas judicial para defendernos, pero la forma de validar nuestros derechos seguirá siendo la organización de las comunidades y la lucha diaria”.

Gustavo Macayo, abogado de comunidades originarias de Chubut, afirmó en el mismo sentido que “un tratado internacional siempre es un avance, ordena al Estado Nacional a adecuarse, pero también es cierto que muchas veces se cuenta con leyes y el Poder Judicial no las aplica y el poder político las viola”. Mauro Millán, de la organización mapuche-tehuelche 11 de Octubre, recordó que existen convenios internacionales (como el 169 de la OIT) de avanzada y que no son aplicados por la Justicia de Argentina. “Los tratados internacionales suelen ser instancias meramente declarativas que suelen ser omitidas por los jueces. Y en eso tiene mucho que ver la política de derechos humanos de los gobiernos, donde el tema indígena está ausente.”

Estados Unidos, Australia, Canadá y Nueva Zelanda –los cuatro países que votaron en contra– tienen una numerosa población indígena y fueron denunciadas reiteradamente ante la ONU por el trato indigno que dan a sus pueblos ancestrales. La férrea oposición a la Declaración estuvo motivada por la resistencia a varios artículos, sobre todo los que refieren a la libre determinación, los derechos a territorios y recursos, la obligación de contar con consentimiento y participación indígena en los asuntos que los involucren, y el reconocimiento del derecho a sus costumbres. En todas estas particularidades, la Declaración fue considerada un paso superador a la legislación nacional de esos cuatro países.

En Argentina, recién con la reforma de 1994, la Constitución reconoció los derechos indígenas: en su Artículo 75 inciso 17 se reconoce la preexistencia étnica y cultural de estos pueblos, se garantiza el respeto a su identidad y el derecho a una educación bilingüe e intercultural, se reconoce la posesión y propiedad comunitarias de las tierras que tradicionalmente ocupan y se asegura la participación en la gestión referida a sus recursos naturales y a los intereses que los afecten, entre otros derechos. La Constitución de 1853, en su Artículo 67, inciso 15, discriminaba específica y explícitamente a los pobladores ancestrales: “Corresponde al Congreso proveer a la seguridad de las fronteras, conservar el trato pacífico con los indios y promover la conversión de ellos al catolicismo”.

© 2000-2007 www.pagina12.com.ar|Todos los Derechos Reservados

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/sociedad/3-91399-2007-09-15.html

---

Página/12:
Chokokue

Por Osvaldo Bayer
Sábado, 15 de Septiembre de 2007

La realidad supera toda imaginación. Quién iba a pensar que aquella Argentina de donde salieron los ejércitos libertadores de América, después de aquel increíble 25 de Mayo de 1810, hoy tuviera presos políticos paraguayos, hombres que sólo cometieron el delito de luchar por algo que les pertenece a los trabajadores de la tierra: precisamente, la tierra. Los he visitado en la cárcel de Marcos Paz y escribí una contratapa de esa causa, mostrando la absoluta injusticia que estábamos llevando a cabo. Pero el silencio de nuestros organismos oficiales de derechos humanos se mantuvo. Los campesinos paraguayos que lucharon por su tierra en Paraguay siguen presos en la Argentina. A todos los responsables de este proceder les presentaría el Informe Chokokue sobre “Ejecuciones y desapariciones en la lucha por la tierra en el Paraguay, 1989-2005”, de la Coordinadora de Derechos Humanos del Paraguay presentada al Consejo de Derechos Humanos de Naciones Unidas. Ahí figuran una por una las víctimas, con fotografía, biografía y lugar y fecha de su asesinato. Impresionante la cantidad de jóvenes asesinados. Chokokue, en guaraní, significa campesino. Los que engendran vida en la tierra con la semilla.

El mundo entero lucha por la libertad de los cinco cubanos que mantiene presos Estados Unidos, hasta en nuestras calles se marcha por ellos. Pero la otra realidad es que la Argentina mantiene en cárceles a luchadores de aquí muy cerca, del Paraguay, la misma gente de origen guaraní que nuestros misioneros, correntinos, formoseños y chaqueños.

Los norteamericanos, a cinco cubanos; los argentinos a seis paraguayos. He conocido a las esposas de los luchadores presos. Sus rostros, muy tristes. ¿Por qué para la Justicia los culpables son siempre los pobres y no los que tienen el poder y el dinero? Esas mujeres han venido a Buenos Aires, dejando a sus niños de muy corta edad atendidos por sus abuelas, allá, bien en el interior, entre selvas, plantíos y caudalosos ríos.

Los seis presos paraguayos me han escrito una carta que me llegó al alma. Me dicen, entre otros párrafos, lo siguiente: “La realidad que nos toca enfrentar, trágica por cierto, nos conduce a una afirmación: que la historia del Paraguay está signada por la fatalidad y la pobreza, pues la corrupción, la exclusión y la discriminación continúan minando la estructura institucional de la República. Si bien es cierto que se fue el dictador Stroessner, quedó la estructura que se construyó en sus treinta y cuatro años de gobierno autoritario. Aquí tenemos que los propietarios de las tierras malhabidas tienen nombre y apellido, son personas que formaron o siguen formando el entorno del poder político, militar y económico en el Paraguay”.

La realidad la denuncian las estadísticas: 1.191.000 de seres humanos viven en condiciones de pobreza extrema. Ya esto bastaría para comprender por qué los labriegos de la tierra dicen basta y se organizan para terminar con la injusticia, el privilegio y las dictaduras “legales” de los dueños de todo.

Qué hubieran pensado nuestros Castelli y Moreno, con aquellos profundos escritos sobre la Justicia y el derecho de todos, acerca de que hoy los argentinos protegemos indirectamente las acciones de los miserables dictadores del privilegio paraguayo. Por eso se ha levantado el sacerdote Fernando Lugo en tierras guaraníes contra la cadena de corrupción y antidemocracia que, como decimos, inició Stroessner y ahora continúa Duarte Frutos. El ex obispo Lugo siempre estuvo en las grandes marchas campesinas de reivindicación.

Las autoridades argentinas tendrían que preguntar a Lugo quiénes son estos presos paraguayos y no a las “autoridades oficiales” producto del poder del dinero. Me escriben esos presos paraguayos de los argentinos: “Por denunciar nuestra realidad estamos presos, por ser libres, por educar a los humildes, estamos presos porque somos del pueblo, somos la voz de los sin voz, estamos presos porque somos coherentes con nuestro discurso, somos patriotas y pensamos en días mejores para las futuras generaciones”.

Para juzgar los hechos debemos tener en cuenta que el Partido Colorado, que gobierna Paraguay desde siempre, colaboró en el Operativo Cóndor, repudiado por todos los organismos de derechos humanos del mundo, que entregó perseguidos políticos con Pinochet y Videla. No podemos los argentinos escondernos en supuestas obligaciones judiciales para mantener presos a estos hombres. Sería volver a los conceptos seudolegales en que se basaron los jueces de la dictadura de la nefasta y cruel época de la desaparición de personas. Y preguntarnos por qué en las falsas denuncias contra estos presos guaraníes intervino el señor Blumberg. Lo único que falta es que se mezclen ahora Bussi, Patti y Rico para dar fuerza “ideológica” a la infame acusación contra estos latinoamericanos que luchan, como en nuestro Chubut resisten los Nahuelquir y los Curiñanco contra el poder del dinero de Benetton.

Mientras los campesinos paraguayos Agustín Acosta, Roque Rodríguez, Basiliano Cardozo, Arístides Vera, Simeón Bordón y Gustavo Lezcano están detrás de rejas argentinas, los verdaderos culpables especuladores de la tierra están libres y manejando fondos con los cuales se podría terminar el hambre en nuestras tierras. Creo que es una cuestión de honor para los argentinos abrir las puertas de la cárcel para los humildes luchadores de la tierra. Debemos organizar una larga marcha por nuestras calles para que esas manos, que hoy están separadas del mundo en la cárcel, vuelvan a arrojar las semillas en sus cálidas tierras mojadas por sus generosas aguas. Debemos encolumnarnos hacia el sol, acompañados por todos los cantores que cantan la poesía de la libertad y el trabajo. Iremos acompañados por la música de guitarras y arpas guaraníes. Sin hierros y sin armas, con las manos abiertas, poniendo el rostro. Una marcha como soñó Salvador Allende cuando antes de morir por la dignidad nos habló de las anchas alamedas por la cual iban a volver los trabajadores en busca de la dignidad.

Los generosos de los pueblos no se rinden. Días pasados, en el espléndido acto por los presos políticos argentinos se pidió la libertad de ellos. Pocas horas después se recibió la limpia noticia que los tres estudiantes del Colectivo Amauta, que dirige el intelectual argentino Néstor Kohan, que estaban presos por participar del acto en recuerdo de las jóvenes vidas masacradas en Trelew por la dictadura militar de Lanusse, habían sido dejados en libertad. El acto se hizo frente al Bauen, lugar de encuentro de los que creen en el futuro, los que no se resignan, los que se dan la mano por una sociedad más justa y en paz.

También en estos días de septiembre asistimos a un acto enternecedor: cuando las Madres desparramaron por los jardines de la Plaza de Mayo las cenizas de la bella Madre Marta Badillo, quien se fue por los cielos para seguir buscando a su hijo desaparecido. Hubo lágrimas generosas y palabras de despedida llenas de esperanza y noble orgullo. Marta Badillo, sus cenizas están en la Plaza Rebelde, y ella está escalando el paraíso de los que no se rindieron nunca en la búsqueda de la justicia. En cambio, los torturadores estarán ocupados eternamente en intentar liberarse del barro que los cubrirá para siempre. La ética siempre se impone finalmente en la Historia.

© 2000-2007 www.pagina12.com.ar|Todos los Derechos Reservados

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/contratapa/13-91404-2007-09-15.html

---

The Independent:
In the Colosseum, thoughts turn to death

Robert Fisk
Published: 15 September 2007

At midnight on Thursday, I lay on my back in the Colosseum and looked at a pageant of stars above Rome. Where the lions tore into gladiators, and only a few metres from the cross marking the place of Saint Paul's crucifixion – "martyrdom", of course, has become an uneasy word in this age of the suicide bomber – I could only reflect on how a centre of cruelty could become one of the greatest tourist attractions of our time. An Italian television station had asked me to talk about capital punishment in the Middle East for a series on American executions and death row prisoners. Two generators had melted down in an attempt to flood the ancient arena with light. Hence, the moment of reflection.

Readers with serious money may also like to know that it costs £75,000 to hire the Colosseum for 24 hours, a cool £10,500 just for our little night under the stars. Yet who could not think of capital punishment in the Colosseum?

Watching the first episode of the Italian television series – which recounted the visits of an Italian man and woman to two Americans who had spent years on death row in Texas – I was struck by how both prisoners, who may or may not have remembered amid their drug-induced comas whether or not they murdered anyone, had clearly "reformed". Both deeply regretted their crimes, both prayed that one day they could return to live good lives, to care for their children, to go shopping, walk the dog. In other words, they were no longer the criminals they were when they were sentenced.

Given their predicament, I guess anyone would reform. But I suspect that guilt or innocence is not what the death sentence is about. My Dad was perfectly aware that the young Australian soldier he was ordered to execute in the First World War had killed a British military policeman in Paris, but the Australian promised to live "an upright and straightforward life" if pardoned. My father refused to kill the Australian. Someone else shot him instead. Capital punishment, for those who believe in it, is almost a passion. I rather think it is close to an addiction, something – like smoking or alcohol – which can be cured only by total abstinence. And no excuses for secret Japanese executions or lethal injections in Texas or head-chopping outside Saudi Arabian mosques. But how do you reach this stage when humanity is so obsessed with death in so barbaric a form?

Whenever the Iranians string up drug-dealers or rapists – and who knows their guilt or innocence – the cranes which hoist these unfortunates into the sky like dead thrushes are always surrounded by thousands of men and women, often chanting "God is Great". They did this even when a young woman was hanged.

Surely some of these people are against such terrible punishment. But there is, it seems, something primal in our desire for judicial killings. George Bernard Shaw once wrote that if Christians were thrown to the lions in the Royal Albert Hall, there would be a packed house every night. I'm sure he was right. Did not those thousands of Romans pack this very same, sinister Colosseum in which I was lying to watch just such carnage? Was not Saddam Hussein's execution part of our own attempt to distract the Iraqis with bread and circuses, the shrieking executioners on the mobile phone video the Baghdad equivalent of the gladiators putting their enemies to the sword? Nor, let us remember, is execution only the prerogative of states and presidents. The IRA practised capital punishment. The Taliban practises execution and so does al-Qa'ida. Osama bin Laden – and I heard this from him in person – believes in the "Islamic" punishment of head chopping.

I remember the crowds who lynched three Palestinian collaborators in Hebron in 2001, their near-naked bodies later swinging from electric pylons while small children threw stones at their torsos, the thousands who cheered when their carcasses were tossed with a roar of laughter into a garbage truck. I was so appalled that I could not write in my notebook and instead drew pictures of this obscenity. They are still in the pages of my notebook today, hanging upside down like Saint Paul, legs askew above their heads, their bodies punctured by cigarette burns.

The leading antagonists in the preposterous "war on terror" which we are all supposed to be fighting – Messrs Bush and bin Laden – are always talking about death and sacrifice although, in his latest videotape, the latter showed a touching faith in American democracy when he claimed the American people had voted for Bush's first presidency.

For bin Laden, 11 September 2001 was "punishment" for America's bloodshed in the Muslim world; indeed, more and more attacks by both guerrillas and orthodox soldiers are turning into revenge operations. Was not the first siege of Fallujah revenge for the killing and desecration of the bodies of American mercenaries? Wasn't Abu Ghraib part of "our" revenge for 11 September and for our failures in Iraq?

Many of the suicide attacks in the Middle East – in "Palestine", in Afghanistan, in Iraq – are specifically named after "martyrs" killed in previous operations. Al-Qa'ida in Iraq stated quite explicitly that it had "executed" US troops in retaliation for the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl south of Baghdad.

Yet I fear the real problem goes beyond the individual act of killing, judicial or otherwise. In a weird, frightening way, we believe in violent death. We regard it as a policy option, as much to do with self-preservation on a national scale as punishment for named and individual wrongdoers. We believe in war. For what is aggression – the invasion of Iraq in 2003, for example – except capital punishment on a mass scale? We "civilised" nations – like the dark armies we believe we are fighting – are convinced that the infliction of death on an awesome scale can be morally justified.

And that's the problem, I'm afraid. When we go to war, we are all putting on hoods and pulling the hangman's lever. And as long as we send our armies on the rampage – whatever the justification – we will go on stringing up and shooting and chopping off the heads of our "criminals" and "murderers" with the same enthusiasm as the Romans cheered on the men of blood in the Colosseum 2,000 years ago.

http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2964521.ece

---

ZNet | China:
A Brief Review of the Work of Professor Noam Chomsky

by Moss Roberts
September 14, 2007

[Moss Roberts was invited by the widely circulated Chinese magazine Nanfang Renwu Zhoukan to write an article introducing Chinese readers to the work of Noam Chomsky. The essay appeared on January 11, 2007. This is an expanded version of the original Chinese article.]

Noam Chomsky, born December 7, 1928, and raised in the city of Philadelphia, is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at MIT. Like his father, William, a respected scholar of the Hebrew language, Professor Chomsky knows Hebrew and published a study of its phonetic system. His own early training as a scholar of the Old Testament and its commentaries introduced him to the rabbinical tradition of intensive critical questioning of texts and the idea of an 'activist mind.'

Well before the state of Israel was established in 1948, in the household of his parents the questions of the Zionist movement and the settlement of Jews in Palestine were as important as the study of the Hebrew Bible. Family life brought the young Chomsky into the milieu of socialists and idealists who in the 1930s and 40s strove for social reform in the US and for the creation of Israel as a secular state based on collective principles of social justice, and co-existing peacefully and productively with its Arab neighbors. Thus even as a youngster his interest in language and in politics were connected and had begun to influence each other. Robert Barsky's biography, called Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent, and published by MIT Press in 1997, contains a useful discussion of his early years. Today, Professor Chomsky is distinguished for his innovative work in the field of linguistics, but his wider public renown is due to his authoritative voice as a critic of US foreign and domestic policy.

As a scholar of linguistics, Professor Chomsky is one of the founders of a school called generative transformational grammar. This school of linguistic research and analysis develops the theory that the power to acquire and utilize language is inborn and found only in humans. This theory rejects the idea that the capacity to learn and produce language develops only mechanically through external conditioning. A child's speech does not simply imitate what has been heard. Rather, external conditioning is actively received and worked upon as the mind (renxin) grows and develops the ability to generate new ideas and new sentences. The mind is the principal agent, the creative factor. By the age of five or six the result of this process is the basic mastery of a language, the ability to transform "finite words and rules" into, as Barsky says, "an infinite number of sentences." The process unfolds throughout life.

Professor Chomsky's position on language may remind some of Mencius' affirmation (opposing Gaozi and Mozi) of the existence of human nature (renxing). For Mencius, man is not merely a blank entity to be shaped by external conditions but has an endowed active potential to be developed through cultivation and learning, ideally under a benevolent sovereign. Man's disposition toward the social virtues is natural says Mencius, just as Chomsky views the capacity for language use as natural. Since language is the mode of human socialization, the two philosophies are compatible, though Mencius has higher expectations for government than Chomsky does. Mencius' key term 'benevolent government' (renzheng) is not found in Professor Chomsky's writings.

Of course, when Professor Chomsky affirms the existence of a "human nature with innate powers" independent of social and historical conditions, his philosophical sources are not Confucian but rather such Enlightenment thinkers as Spinoza and Descartes. Professor Chomsky acknowledges the influence of Descartes' view of language as a unique human endowment, categorically different from machine-like animals (Barsky 108). The 17th century Jewish thinker Spinoza, who understood God in terms of nature and reason, is another source of Professor Chomsky's thinking. Human nature is a crucial category in all of Professor Chomsky's thought. His 1970 television debate on the subject with Michel Foucault (who gives more weight to external conditions) was published in September 2006.

When Professor Chomsky turns to social questions, one may observe him working on ideas of free development similar to those underlying his theory of language. He holds that humans do not need much in the way of external control in order to form wholesome and productive social relationships. He "wants to see a society moving toward voluntary organizations and eliminating as much as possible the structures of hierarchy and domination, and the basis for them in ownership and control" (Chomsky on Democracy and Education, p. 298, RoutledgeFarmer, 2003). In his view such powerful forces as official propaganda and state coercion distort human psychology and relationships and thus stifle intellectual development and social life in general. An opponent of the all mighty State, Professor Chomsky identifies himself as part of the anarchist tradition (defined as voluntary or anti-authoritarian socialism with institutions controlled by and serving workers). He also speaks of himself as a 'left libertarian' or a 'libertarian socialist.'

For those not familiar with the term, 'libertarianism' is an outgrowth of Enlightenment liberalism. In advocating freedom of individual development, libertarianism is part of the Anglo-American tradition of suspicion of official authority and institutions as arbiters of society and morality. As capitalism developed, however, libertarianism became almost the opposite of the more familiar doctrines of liberalism which look to benign state power to protect by law individual rights. In American politics today right-wing libertarians (many of whom came into prominence when Reagan was president) also oppose a strong (or too strong) state and Washington's war policies, because they strengthen the state at the expense of all other values and interests. This is why terms like right and left do not easily apply to Professor Chomsky. He calls himself a 'left' libertarian partly because of his support for government policies that improve the lives of poor people (both in the US and abroad), partly because the left is by far the weaker force in US politics, and partly because of his early hopes for a socialist Israel. But more often than not his focus is on epistemology, how the mind processes political language and reaches conclusions. As for Marxism, he sees it as useful for critical analysis but has little sympathy for it when it serves as an ideological instrument of state control or for justifying official positions.

Professor Chomsky's critique of the State is mainly directed toward his own. He turns his analytical anger on Washington's cruel maltreatment of third world people, its ruthless foreign policies and disregard for international law, its abuse of US citizens and residents, and its violations of democracy and Constitutional Law. He argues that this pattern of behavior became dominant after World War II left the US state in a position of unchallengeable power. It was US aggression against Vietnam that most powerfully influenced him to become a critic of US foreign policy. His essays on the war are collected in American Power and the New Mandarins (1969) and in At War With Asia (1970); these books remain relevant today. Chinese readers may have a particular interest in what he has written about the Vietnam War since the US invasion was justified in the US and round the world by the need to contain China. Fortunately for China and America, the Vietnamese successfully contained Washington's power and thus opened the door to a period of relative peace and partial prosperity in eastern Asia in the last thirty years.

In his latest work, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (2006), he challenges another myth of the Vietnam War, that US military force can impose democracy on other peoples. He argues that the real motives of Washington are for material and strategic gains and not for the ideals (freedom, democracy) so often claimed as motives (Chapter 4 "Democracy Promotion Abroad"). For Professor Chomsky, Washington is no exception as it follows the historical pattern of earlier empires whether Roman or British. He suggests that "the more there is a need to talk about the ideals of democracy, the less democratic the system usually is" (Chomsky on MisEducation, p. 17, 2000).

Professor Chomsky's logic is to apply universal principles when judging the behavior of government. In Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (p. 4) he writes, "Those who are seriously interested in understanding the world will adopt the same standards whether they are evaluating their own political and intellectual elites or those of official enemies. . . . Truth [is] veiled by intentional ignorance that makes a crucial contribution to ongoing crimes." He regards the quest for truth and the struggle against official evasion and mendacity as the "responsibility of intellectuals."

In his own work Professor Chomsky diligently measures his government's actual behavior against its idealized but false representations widespread in media and educational institutions. He shows how these misrepresentations serve the goal of indoctrination and "manufacturing consent," which is the title of one of his most important books and also of a film made about him. In Failed States (103) he writes: "It is no easy task to gain some understanding of human affairs. In some respects, the task is harder than in the natural sciences. Mother Nature doesn't provide the answers on a silver platter, but at least she does not go out of her way to set up barriers to understanding. In human affairs, such barriers are the norm. It is necessary to dismantle the structures of deception erected by doctrinal systems. . . ."

Thus the core of Professor Chomsky's approach is as much about thought and language as about politics. He seeks to uncover how indoctrination systems work to prevent people from gaining a real and practical understanding of the major questions of our world, and how they enable intellectuals to exempt their government from criticism of the very same evils for which they easily (and rightly, but safely) condemn other governments. Nothing troubles him more than this double standard. Thus he says that polls show about 70 percent of Americans agreeing that the war in Vietnam was immoral, while most intellectuals and officials prefer to call the war a well-meaning mistake, something they would never say about Russia's invasion of Afghanistan or Czechoslovakia. We see the same practice in the moralizing of crimes: bombing is called humanitarian, invasions are rescues, political adversaries are evil tyrants, etc. However, Professor Chomsky also observes that this hypocrisy of misrepresentation shows that Washington is well aware that Americans would not accept the real purposes of its policies and have to be fooled into accepting immoral acts of violence. This further suggests that Americans like all people have a natural universal aversion to immorality that has to be taken into account by the rulers.

Here is one example of such deception: in Failed States (p. 47-48) Professor Chomsky writes as follows about the US destruction on November 9, 2004 of Falluja General Hospital in Iraq: "The word 'conflict' is a common euphemism for US aggression, as when we read [in the New York Times] that 'now the Americans are rushing in engineers who will begin rebuilding what the conflict has just destroyed' - just 'the conflict,' with no agent, like a hurricane." Professor Chomsky expresses his outrage at the way a leading newspaper contrives to obscure moral responsibility for destroying a hospital filled with patients and medical personnel while reassuring readers that some kind of meaningful rescue is underway.

Professor Chomsky has often written letters to the press to complain about and correct such misrepresentations. His letters are almost never published. He recognizes that major newspapers and even television stations do at times carry partial criticism of policies, but he remains frustrated at how little influence the occasional critic has. He appreciates the fact that there are small oases in the system, places where free critical inquiry does go forward, sometimes at elite universities like his own. These places have value but also create the illusion of a wider freedom of discussion that does not exist. At the same time he argues that a good part of the educational system participates in indoctrination to create consensus. Sheer force and fear, used freely in the Third World, would not work so well on the American middle class. One of the books in which he explores this question is Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies (1989). Professor Chomsky's effort to expose governmental wrongdoing brings together his study of language and mind and his study of politics. Professor Chomsky's approach is epistemological: he is interested in the process of thinking. He seeks to understand how official positions are communicated to the public, how they are learned and accepted, but also how citizens can think for themselves and overcome official misrepresentation.

Independent thought, self-generated transformative critical thought as a basis for well-informed collective activism for rational humane goals, therefore, are perhaps the highest moral values for Professor Chomsky. Informed citizen activism (including legal protection for it) is the necessary preventative or corrective for bad policies. This helps explain his great admiration for Bertrand Russell, the famed English philosopher and anti-war activist, who joined public demonstrations against British governmental injustice and its eagerness for war-making. Despite the unequal struggle against official policies and their misrepresentations, Professor Chomsky usually is cautiously optimistic. He believes that human nature and the natural powers of mind will in the long run prevail, just as he believes that -however limited - human progress has been made over the last 500 years.

In his many books on the subject of Washington's policies abroad and at home, Professor Chomsky writes about government policies not as an expert but as an informed citizen taking responsibility for his government. He believes that a person with an ordinary level of education and intelligence when given relevant facts and honest analysis should have no difficulty figuring out the meaning of events despite official efforts to obscure the facts, interests, and motives behind policy choices. For this reason Professor Chomsky writes plain straightforward English and is sometimes critical of academic theories couched in overly complex language. He finds much fashionable post-modernist and post-colonialist academic writing too pedantic and too far from common discourse even when he might agree with the ideas expressed.

Perhaps the main myth Professor Chomsky seeks to expose is that Washington has a benevolent and god-given leadership role to play among the nations of the world, and that whatever nation happens to be the principal enemy of the moment deserves to be demonized: yesterday Russia, Vietnam and China; today Iraq, Iran, and Korea; tomorrow - who knows? Focusing on a mythical evil, be it communism, terrorism, or some other 'ism,' is for him a device to promote war (cold or hot) and to deceive Americans into supporting bad means for unreal ends. For Professor Chomsky the reality is that Washington has supported oppressive dictatorships all round the world: in Indonesia, the Congo, Central America, Latin America, the Philippines, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Korea, and elsewhere. These dictatorships earn Washington's support by opening their economies to corporate exploitation of their natural resources and their labor. Foreign (multi-national) corporate goals rarely serve the local people of smaller nations and are usually injurious to them. Therefore, at times, extreme violence against one small nation is useful in getting others to obey Washington's orders without too much protest. He notes that a majority of Americans are kept uninformed about these large world realities.

In condemning the failure of Washington's policies to live up to the ideals that most Americans aspire to, Professor Chomsky might be compared to Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah, who condemned the leaders of the Jews for breaking their binding covenant with God. He wants to call on Americans to honor their promised ideals, and hold themselves responsible and their leaders to account for violations of their own professed ideals. As for his own role, his ability to speak and publish, he understands that to be effective, a mature and sophisticated propaganda system has to make a little room for the occasional critic or dissident (if it must), but only at the margin, ensuring that critical messages are unlikely to get far enough to cause much to change.

Critics of Professor Chomsky have said that he pays too much attention to Washington's wrongdoing and not enough to those of other governments. To this charge, his answer is simple. As one committed to universal principles, he is aware and critical of the wrongs others commit, but he reserves his main energy for studying the state that he is a citizen of, and therefore bears primary responsibility for, his own. Students of early Chinese thought will notice an important Confucian principle in this approach, namely that one must make one's self (one's society, one's nation) a good example before trying to rectify others: Zheng ji, zheng ren.

From a Chinese point of view it might seem that despite changes in rhetoric (democracy instead of civilizing) modern international law, trade practice, and war-making have changed little from the days when gunboat diplomacy imposed unequal treaties on China (and many other colonies) in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Smaller third world economies are vulnerable to the negative policies of the IMF and World Bank. Free trade is often coercive trade that blocks free trade in agricultural products. The only thing protecting China as it has advanced from colonial status through revolution to stakeholder in the global system of trade and diplomacy is its strong state. Here is an important problem that Professor Chomsky does not address. How does China fit into his general political analysis? How would he analyze the entire course of the Chinese revolution, with its emphasis on state-building, from Sun Yat Sen to Mao Zedong and those who came after him?

Although he mentions China occasionally and recognizes its sufferings from Western imperialism, Professor Chomsky rarely explores its history or culture in detail. Perhaps this is because his negative attitude toward the State contradicts the larger political traditions and modern history of China. The result is a dilemma. How can a weak state fight imperialism? It was the revolutionary post-1949 Chinese state that played a key role in restraining Washington's aggressions in Asia. It is the post-revolutionary Chinese state that has played a key role in protecting the Chinese economy from the World Bank, the US Treasury and Department of Commerce and even the Pentagon. In the ideological shift away from Communist egalitarianism and class struggle the Chinese leadership turned to Confucianism as a means to exert its authority over the population and also as a means to reclaim the cultural allegiance of all Chinese around the world (and their investment capital). This reassertion of the traditional culture serves in addition as a barrier to the 'soft penetration' of Christians on a mission.

Thus when it comes to the role of the state as a moral force with patriarchal leaders who discipline and educate the people Chomsky's libertatian anarchism as a political philosophy must part company with Confucianism, however quietly, even if Confucian theories of the mind seem compatible with Chomsky's theories of man's innate capacity for language and morality.

As the ideology of political order, Confucianism combines the political and the moral in a way that is rare in the modern West, where religion and the state are normally separated into different if not independent spheres. In the West, law justifies state power while religion then claims for itself the sphere of morality. Perhaps because of the joining of government and morality (zhengzhe zhengye as Confucius says, "governing is a matter of moral rectitude"), China is far more secular in its political ideology than the US or the Muslim nations.

If religion is marginal or dispensable for most Chinese, a good number of Americans in the grip of missionary illusions still believe that they have the cure (religion, human rights, democracy) for many of the problems that China faces, even if these "cures" have to be forced on the Chinese. A number of Chinese share such views. Many Christians still believe in the medieval mission of converting the Jews and look upon the Chinese as equally good candidates for conversion. Chomsky's writings are a useful antidote to such illusions of benevolent intervention, showing in detail how noble ideals are perverted to serve the most inhuman economic and strategic ends. As Mark Twain wrote in 1900, those missionary idealists who have gone to convert the Chinese to Christianity should return home at once to save their own desperate countrymen from the sin of participating in the lynching of blacks: "The Chinese . . . are plenty good enough just as they are; and besides every convert runs a risk of catching our civilization . . . O kind missionary, O compassionate missionary, leave China! Come home and convert these Christians!" ("The United States of Lyncherdom").


Moss Roberts is Professor of Chinese at New York University. Recent articles by him include "Bad Karma in Asia" (in Harootunian and Miyoshi, LEARNING PLACES) and "'We Threaten the World'" (in Ross and Ross, ANTI-AMERICANISM). He has also translated works of Chinese literature and philosophy. He was a founding member of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars, which published the journal Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. Among the initial board members of that journal was Noam Chomsky.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=103&ItemID=13783